Eric Fernsten: Valuable Journey Man

February 22, 1980

FERNSTEN WINNING BATTLE WITH OBSCURITY


Eric Fernsten will be the first to tell you that the life of a professional basketball player is not necessarily all what you call your tinsel and glitter.

Here he was, a rookie backup center with the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was Thanksgiving Day 1975, and his belongings had just arrived from the West Coast. "I had just finished unpacking my stereo and other things and I went to practice," Eric recalls. "That's when I learned I had been traded to Chicago."

Fifty-one weeks later, Fernsten would receive another lesson in the art of Staying Loose. "It was Nov. 17, 1976," he says. "The Bulls had just traded for John Mengelt. And Scott May, who had been out with mono, was coming back. So they waived Paul McCracken and myself."

Which brings us to another aspect of basketball life that Kareem Abdul- Jabbar will never have to worry about. Two weeks later, after Fernsten was cut by Chicago, he found himself in Belgium. "They said to me, Here's our big gym.' I walked in, and it had a concrete floor with linoleum on top. It seated 200 people. I almost cried."

It is with such indignities in mind that Eric Fernsten has adopted a cautious local lifestyle. "Now," he laughs, "maybe people will understand why I slept on a bare mattress for two months in Boston."

Just good enough to stay around, Eric Fernsten is just not good enough to feel secure. He worked hard to improve his game because every night could be his showcase. He has no guarantee that things will work out permanently in Boston, so he must maintain his marketablility.

But Eric Fernsten is a plugger. It's been that way since he began playing basketball seriously the summer before his sophomore year at Oakland's Skyline High School. He has worked continuously through the U. of San Francisco, the Cavaliers, the Bulls, Belgium, Italy (two years) and now through six months as a Boston Celtic. For the first time he is making tangible contributions to the team with the best record in professional basketball. He was ready when the time came. Eric Fernsten has never been afraid to pay the price, which is one reason why Bill Fitch, the man who traded him on that infamous Thanksgiving (receiving Nate Thurmond in return), likes him.

"The common denominator of all role players," explains Fitch, "is that they are good people. Eric is a beautiful human being. It's the same with Jeff Judkins. Even when they aren't getting a lot of playing time, they are working hard in practice."

Fernsten's chance came when Dave Cowens went down with that hyperextended left big toe. Until then he had been just another white face at the end of the bench, playing a mere 77 minutes in 47 games. Garden fans wondered why he'd been kept around. Now they know. Eric Fernsten can play in the NBA. "Every player in the league," says Fitch, "wants to be a lead man, and obviously they all can't be. If Eric continues to improve, he can cement himself as a backup center and power forward in this league."

Fitch claims that Fernsten has made "immeasurable" improvement since he first showed up in Cleveland as a fourth-round draft choice in 1975. "He had physical equipment. That's why you draft him," explains Fitch. "But his awareness of the game was not there. Now he'll come up to my room and watch a tape and be able to pick apart an offense. He was probably shaking his head, Yes, yes' about 50 times a day when I first had him when he really didn't know what was going on."

Fernsten certainly looked as if he knew what was going on when he scored 11 points in 17 minutes last Sunday in Seattle, or when he scored 10 points in 15 minutes two nights earlier in Portland. He is rebounding better, passing better and defending better than when he first came to Boston. Liked and respected by everybody on the club, he has simply become a valuable member of the Celtics unit.

And yet, although everything has changed, nothing has changed. His future is, as usual, clouded. The advent of Pete Maravich necessitates an evental roster change, although Fitch says it's never been a question of Judkins vs. Fernsten in his mind. But Eric can look down the road. The Celtics have two first-round draft picks, and he knows they're talking about drafting a center. Maybe he'll be able to stick around as a frontcourt swingman as Fitch suggests. Maybe he'll be a victim of a numbers game. Nobody knows.

Fernsten is nothing if not pragmatic, however. "As I've always been told by my friends - even though I have often believed them - I am a fairly good player. When they didn't renew my contract in Italy this year, I just told them I have to go somewhere else and assume someone would appreciate my talent. That still holds."

Eric Fernsten deserves a chance to sign a long-term lease, unpack that stereo and settle down somewhere. Let's hope that somewhere is Boston.